Tag Archives: Valentine’s Day

Loveland’s 2022 Community Mural

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The 2022 mural is based on Johannes Vermeer’s 1665 painting, “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”

On Valentine’s Day weekend in downtown Loveland, Colorado, some 300 local citizens helped create a new community mural. In what has become an annual tradition, each person painted a 9-inch square tile, (usually) following simple guidelines. Anyone able to hold a paintbrush was able to join in, regardless of age or artistic skill.

I have designed the mural-making process to be virtually foolproof. It’s better than paint-by-number because participants are able to creatively express themselves on their tiles. I love to see how people jump in – some restrained, some exuberant; some with a specific vision, some just playing with paint. This is now our sixth community-building-Sweetheart-Festival mural, and I love to see the hundreds of declarations of love that have gone up over the past few years.

This is my intention for this project: community building! I like to hope that in some small way this project is a counter force to the many polarizing forces in our world today.

I conceived the idea for these collaborative murals after the 2016 presidential election. It seemed to me at the time that our world had become dangerously polarized and tribal. At least in my small corner of the world I wanted to do something that would bring the hundreds of local Valentine festival-goers together for something free, fun, creative, and collaborative. As I’ve driven down 4th Street and seen smiling pedestrians enjoying the finished mural throughout each year, I feel that we’ve hit the bull’s-eye.

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Some of my favorite individual tiles!…

Unfortunately, six years later, things do not seem much improved on the culture war front. Art can only take us so far. Politicians don’t bring us together. When a presidential administration is aligned with one side or the other it only heightens the division. This past year confirmed that big tech can’t be trusted to be the arbiter of the truth. Nor can any one news source. There is misinformation about misinformation. Fact checkers need to be fact checked.

Trust in institutions seems to be in short supply, and understandably so.

In a climate where people conflate opinion and fact, and where common ground is difficult to find, common ground can only be part of the solution. We may not be able to find much of that. We must re-learn to live together peacefully in respectful disagreement. In my opinion, that can only happen if we talk to each other; if we get to know each other with the aim of understanding one another.

If you’ve had enough of hysterical polarization, would like to become part of the solution, but aren’t sure where to begin, I have a friendly suggestion. Join this group: BraverAngels.org.  Or at least check out one of their “Skills Trainings” e-courses. You can join BA for $1 dollar a month. I’ve been a member for well over a year now and hope to see it grow! You can also easily search out some past BA events on Youtube to get a feel for what a BA event looks like.

Grace and peace to you!
Scott Freeman

Check out my newest Children’s book, The Friendly City, to help the child in your life navigate a divided culture! You can preview all my books, page by page, on my Instagram.

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A view of Loveland’s annual Sweetheart Festival, taken from our tile-painting tent. This year the festival was held at “the Foundry,” Loveland’s newest downtown public plaza.



Building Community During a Pandemic

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Loveland, Colorado’s newest community mural, located on 4th Street at Lincoln. Made up of 336 individual tiles.
One of my favorite hand-print tiles.

When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency in 2016 I heard numerous accounts of people weeping, going into depression, and cutting ties with friends and family who had voted for Trump. It was during this climate that I conceived of the idea of putting on a giant community art event that would involve hundreds of people coming together to create a unified statement.

Five monumental murals later we have a new president and the nation appears to me to be more divided than ever. Furthermore, any attempts at building community are made more challenging as we can’t see each other’s faces or be in close physical proximity to one another. Both people and events are now frequently cancelled.

In past years all the mural painting has been done over a 3 day period in the midst of Loveland’s annual Valentine’s Day street festival. It’s been fun, but often chaotic and cold!

This depiction of hops was painted by the Brew master at Grimm Brothers Brewhouse.

This year, though the street festival was cancelled, the city still wanted to celebrate the Valentine season by going forward with a new community mural. For subject matter in past years I had parodied a famous painting. For this year’s design the city requested that I base the mural on the US Postal Service’s new Forever Stamp.

The painting of this mural took place over a 3 week period inside the warmer and quieter Beet Center, the Loveland Museum-Gallery’s expanded space. In order to comply with state restrictions around COVID, we had people sign up for 20-minute increments and limit the number of people per room. While I missed the energy of the street festival, I have to admit I enjoyed the slower pace. I was also able to enjoy extended conversations with several people.

But about this business of unifying the nation…

I’m happy to announce that everyone who participated in painting this year’s mural is now at peace with their neighbor, and has become committed to treating their political opponents with love and respect.

One of my favorites by a local artist friend…

Just kidding!

If only it were that easy. During an interview this year I was asked, “How have you seen art bring people together since the start of the pandemic? I replied:

Honestly, it’s been difficult bringing people together for any reason since the pandemic season started. I initially wondered if the pandemic might unite the country, but unfortunately it became politicized and has divided our nation even further. I think it’s important for human beings to continue to create, but the arts can only do so much. I think the only thing that will truly bring people together is if we as individuals do the hard work of getting to know our neighbor again, and seeking to understand those who view things differently than we do. I regularly engage in respectful dialogue with people “on the other side,” and it has been very healing. Politicians can’t fix this.

If that sounds like a buzzkill of an answer to you, I would plead to differ. I think it empowers the individual to care constructively, as opposed to hoping and waiting for politicians to get it right. We may not be like-minded in our opinions, but we can choose to be like-minded in approaching each other with understanding and respect as fellow human beings who bear the image of God.

In future posts I’ll share some of my adventures in reaching out to “the other side.” Until then, I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts as to what you believe has caused the polarization in our culture. Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

I made this one!



Do you need a gift idea for a child in your life? My newest book, The Friendly City, is designed to be a fun tool to help kids navigate a culture that has slipped its moorings. Order your copy HERE.

Building Community Through Art

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Klimt, The Kiss, Loveland Colorado
“THE KISS” – Loveland Version, 15 x 15 feet.

2020 is our fourth year to create a giant community art piece in downtown Loveland, Colorado. For the design each year I’ve spoofed a famous fine art painting, giving each one a Valentine’s Day twist and a nod to Loveland.

This year I chose Austrian painter, Gustav Klimt, and his iconic 1908 painting, The Kiss.

If you look closely you can see Dan Cupid aiming his arrow at the couple. Dan Cupid is the character who shows up in the special postmark each year for Loveland’s famous valentine re-mailing program. He’s kind of a Loveland mascot, at least around Valentine’s Day, so he made his way into the design this year.

Dan Cupid, Loveland Community Mural
Detail showing Dan Cupid

Painting of the mural takes place during Loveland’s annual Valentine’s Day Street festival. This year there were 400 tiles, each painted by festival-goers; young and old, skilled and unskilled, first-timers and returnees. I received many enthusiastic comments from folks who are thankful for this community project, letting me know that people value the experience. That’s worth a lot to me!

Four years ago, my motive for creating the mural event sprung from a perceived need and a desire to build community. After the 2016 election, so much of the country seemed so divided and angry, even in my hometown of Loveland.

Today, four years later, the climate doesn’t seem much better to me, except that I now hear more voices calling for listening to, and understanding, one another in respectful dialogue. (Click here to see a favorite example of mine). I believe those voices are correct. The unhealthy alternative of perpetual division is too disheartening to live with. I’m sure that we can leave something better than that to our children; at least as far as it depends on us.

I don’t see much hope that presidents and elected politicians are capable of bringing healing to our divided nation. It’s up to us to do that at a grass roots level. It’s up to us to restore the vanishing art of respectful disagreement. Let us have the courage to connect with our neighbors and get to know them, especially those who may see things differently than we do.

Even though a community mural is not going to transform the social climate, I think it’s one small step in the right direction. Combined with many other small steps, perhaps we can eventually find that we have arrived at a more caring and unified place as a society.

Big thanks again to all of my amazing volunteers at Beggars’ Gate Church!
Thanks also to Loveland Downtown Partnership and the Loveland Chamber of Commerce for their support!

Scott Freeman public art
My valentine to my wife. (I’m too skinny to get a real tattoo).

Book News:
I believe I will finally have the bandwidth this year to complete my next storybook, The Friendly City, (that’s been mostly sitting for a couple of years). I’ll keep you posted, and I look forward to starting to bring some other fun book ideas to life!

— Scott

A Brief Update

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Scott Freeman street art

“Loveland Gothic,” 12×15 ft, painted by 320 local citizens, young and old.

Book Update:
Well, I think I’ve finally figured out how to get back to book making. I’ve secured a part-time job at a local cabinetry company. This helps to ease the financial pressure for my wife and me, and I’m home from work by noon, which should allow me to get back to working on new storybooks that are waiting to come to life. Thank you for your patience!

Other Stuff:
For the past 3 years, I and a small army of volunteers from my church have facilitated the creation of a community mural, painted by local festival-goers, during downtown Loveland’s annual Valentine’s Day festival.

Each year we’ve spoofed an iconic fine art painting, giving each painting a Valentiney twist. This year I chose an American artist, Grant Wood, using the occasion to celebrate sibling love. Many people assume that Wood’s original painting depicts a husband and wife, though this is probably not the case. Wood never clearly defined the relationship of the characters.

The point of the mural project is to bring the community together in creating something fun, creative, and monumental. Individuals are encouraged to express their individuality on their tiles, and those tiles then each become a part of the bigger picture – a metaphor for community. Festival-goers do not know in advance what the bigger picture will be. This is the reason I have chosen fine art imagery – these images are already well loved by the public and are hopefully something of which no one would object to being a part.

My hope in this is that the church can bring something to the unchurched community that will be received as positive, valuable, and inclusive – things that many do not associate with church in the current social climate

All in all, I think the mural came together nicely! It’s on 4th Street and Lincoln ( hwy 287) if you’d like to stop by. Thanks to the Loveland Downtown Partnership and Chamber of Commerce for their support this year. Also thanks to all the volunteers at Beggars’ Gate church for braving the cold and making this happen again.

Scott Freeman - public art

Detail showing the bear chainsaw sculpture and the Abraham Lincoln brooch.

Loveland Gothic-God is Love

What Happened at Loveland’s Fire & Ice Festival

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public art Scott Freeman Mona Lisa

Just for fun, on Valentine’s Day, I want to tell you about a community art event that I and my church, Beggars’ Gate, put on at the city of Loveland’s Valentine’s Day festival.

I admit I am troubled over how divided and uncivil our nation has become. I got an idea for a project that would bring diverse festival-goers together in a fun, creative process that would end in an exciting collaborative result.

With my peeps at church and the Festival organizers on board, we contacted the owner of a boarded-up building downtown. He gave us permission to beautify his blank wall. Already there was lots of trust going around.

Here’s how it worked:
We laid out a giant 13 x 15 foot grid of 12 inch squares on the wall and painted a gold frame around it. We numbered the squares 1 thru 195. On my studio floor I transferred a (secret) design to 195 wooden foot square tiles. So each tile had part of giant drawing on it. I designated how each area of each tile must be painted in order to make this work: “L” for light, “M” for medium, and “D” for dark paint. Plus a few rare tiles with white, black, and red areas.

At the festival, our small army of volunteers instructed festival-goers in the process. Some of the tiles were impossible to mess up, provided the right color values were used, so even very small children and people with disabilities could (and did!) participate.

It was crazy and fun!

Loveland Fire and Ice Festival

Unfortunately, this being our first time, there was a lot of guessing and estimating going on. We ran out of tiles and completed the image before the end of the second festival day. But Fire and Ice is a three day festival. So…one of my peeps ran out and purchased a stack of floor tiles. Another one cut some that needed cutting until we had another 100 blank squares. We contacted the building owner again for permission to attach a second mural to his wall. I worked into the wee hours to put together a (much simpler!) second design, and we were all ready for day 3 on Sunday.

A pastor friend, (who ended up hanging most of the Mona Lisa image on Saturday,) must’ve been struck with some deep thoughts while nailing up the creative expressions of nearly 200 people. What follows is what he wrote when he went home Saturday night. He read it to our little Beggars’ Gate congregation on Sunday morning. His name is John Meyer, and here are his thoughts:

The Mona Loveland

What do you see?

This community art piece is a great picture of one of the good things we believe about life.

Everyone is an individual, with different talents, different experiences, different likes. It is those differences that make this picture fun, interesting, and a bit unexpected.

But there is a bigger picture that comes together in a way that makes a beautiful whole out of all the individuality. It happened because each individual brought his or her own expression within the plan of an artist who had an intention from the beginning. It would have been nearly impossible for hundreds of individuals to make the Mona Loveland by talking among themselves. But by accepting (even without understanding) the greater plan of the artist, the unique expression of each individual created something that included everyone, and has a greater meaning and beauty that only exists because everyone came together.

We think this is a good picture of God’s plan for life. Each of us is made wonderfully unique by Him. Just as no two snowflakes are alike, and no two sets of fingerprints are alike, every person has unique and wonderful traits that are found in no other life.

But none of us are meant to be a complete picture alone. We are made for community. The Designing Artist has had a plan from the beginning to allow us to experience both our individuality and the greater good of a community living together.

It is from both living out who we are, and expressing that uniqueness within the “lines” and plan the Designing Artist has for each life, that allows us to experience the beautiful picture of human community to come together.

Our goal is to help individuals appreciate their own uniqueness, and to understand the plan of God that allows all of us to experience His good and bigger picture together!”

Beggars’ Gate Church
Loveland, Colorado
beggarsgate.com

Mona Lisa Valentine

The finished mural: “The Sweetheart City’s” own Mona Lisa, painted by local citizens…

I want to extend a big THANK YOU to the army of volunteers who enabled this event to happen for the community. They gave time, energy, and resources to make this event free for everyone else. ‘God bless em’ all!

dove peace community art project

This is the completed second mural.